•  Why Trump will not last two years in office...
    by Azzedine Mezbache PhD
     
    The US has a quarter of the world's psychologists. And psychology has made more progress in 100 years than medicine in 500 years. The best and the brightest of them are employed by the major US intelligence agencies. I should know. In 1986, fresh from graduate school with a PhD in organizational psychology with specialization in cultural  diversity, the CIA attempted to hire me, considering my extensive knowledge of arab, French, and nord africain cultures. I considered it, interviewed for it,  then called the CIA telling them I am not interested. My ethics could not square out with the negative image the CIA had in 1986. But that's another story.
    As a clinical and an organizational psychologist who has been studying human behavior in all its complexity for the past 40 years, I now join my ethical colleagues, 1800 US psychologists who had petitioned for the resignation of this president who shames America.  Eighteen hundred psychologists can't be wrong. They know self-defeating behavior when they see it. People in trouble is our business; it is our craft, our calling, our duty to point out unhealthy behavior and, most importantly, to warn the public when a person is a threat to himself and/or to others. Psychologists at the CIA daily and relentlessly construct behavioral profiles of negative leaders around the world. I actually taught a graduate course on negative leadership the likes of Hitler, Jim Jones, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, to name a few.  A carefully constructured psychological profile of Saddam Hussein, for example, focused on analyzing his past behaviors to predict his future behaviors. They accurately predicted that Saddam's paranoia coupled with his grandiosity, a sense of invincibility,  and overconfidence, like Hitler, will lead to his underestimation of the US resolve to kick him out of Koweit and later his fall from grace. Interestingly, after he was caught he reportedly said, "When the USA threatened to attack Iraq, I thought they were bluffing." I contributed in a modest way in 1991 to training 300 US Navy commanders in the art of managing a multicultural workforce; giving them the skills needed to work effectively with military personnel from 21 nations. Who is in the best position to understand human psychology; "the  study of human behavior and mental processes," than US psychologists; pionners in the art and science of personality assessment, behavior analysis, profiling, and the prediction of future behavior?
    Psychologists are in the business of what is appropriate or not in treating others, in leading the masses, and in healing the mind. With just the powers of rigorous science, a disciplined  rational mind and the word, they can even predict the behavior of whole nations. Case in point: Algeria; my native country. The CIA predicts an explosion of this society within 10 years based on predictive factors like 1) internalized anger by the peuple -mostly young people- at their dictatorial government, 2) violent repression of this anger by the government, 3) suppression of liberties, 4) hopelessness of the cadres and 5) helplessness of the poor. How long can they keep enslaving the people of Algeria? Have they learned nothing from 10 years of a recent bloody civil war that left 250 thousand peuple dead?

    What this leader doesn't understand...
    "Behavior doesnt occur in a vaccum" says B.F. Skinner, the father of behavior modification  in the US. Trump overall exemplifies this quote.
    Most psychologists agree that Trump shows signs of a malignant narcissistic personality disorder focused on "my way or the highway," reasoning akin to an egotistic 11 year child who acts without much thinking regarding the consequences of his  actions. A leader who can't admit when he is wrong can't run this great country of ours when effective presidents before him knew how to give different strokes for different folks. Cultural diversity, one of my areas of expertise, is here to stay and is the main reason why the US leads the world in the best way to manage diverse people and ressources. Trump does not value diversity. He has turned everything upside down. He lies like a rug, he threatens people, he fires those who disagree with him, is this any way to lead a great nation founded on democratic ideals? I'm an outsider looking in, an immigrant who, for the past 40 years, has seen and admired presidents of this country who accomplished miracles for their people. Trump is no Obama or Clinton. I have seen 6 transformative and charismatiques presidents using nothing more than their powers of 1) interpersonnel skills, 2) reflective and critical thinking, 3) patience, and 4) participative and not dictatorial leadership to move this country forward, towards prosperity. Trump has none of these skills.
    Malignat narcissisistic personality disorder... the details...
    John Gartner, an american well-known psychiatrist, together with other psychiatrists, has just recently published a book on Trump and revealed the many aspects of this disorder affecting Trump's ability to lead this country. Psychiatrists and psychologists are bound by what is called in both of our respective professions; "duty to warn;" when a person is a threat to himself and/or to others. They are to report this person. Trump is a threat to this great nation. John Garter led a "duty to warn" petition signed by 38000 psychiatrists to remove him from office for being unfit for the job of president. A similar petition signed by 18000 psychologists has called for his resignation. In addition one congressman is attempting to have a bill passed to have him subjet to a battery of tests as to his competencies to lead this country. Rep. Al Green is also attempting to have congress pass articles of impeachment against Trump.  Another congressman is attempting to have congress vote on a bill to make congress the only body that can authorise the use of nuclear arms. "It's the most urgent psychiatric emergency in US history," warns ethical John Gartner, adding, most importantly; "I don't want to have to explain to my grand children, one day, why I did not do anything to warn the world that this president was mentally ill." Don't you wish the germans psychiatrists had warned the world that Hitler was mentally ill? They would have had avoided having 50 million people dead on their conscience.

    My prediction...
    Predicting behavior is one of the tasks US psychologists do very well although no psychologist can or will commit to predicting a behavior with a 100% certainty because human nature is so complex, I predict that Trump will not last 2 years in office. He is his own worst ennemy. His own words, his own actions will do him in. Having taught leadership for years to freshmen all the way to doctoral students, a common fallacy is that leadership transfers well from the business world to the political world. Not a chance. Many matastudies have shown this falllacy to be right.  While running a business and running politics have common denominators, running politics is a different ball game; it calls for tact, diplomaty, a genuine interest in serving the people, etc. Many who voted for him thought, "he is a businessman and he will lead this country to prosperity as a businessman does." Wrong!. What they fail to realise is that there is more to leadership than being a businessman. And business leadership does not transfer very well to political leadership. Leadership of a great nation calls for the use of alliance power, compromise, and giving different strokes for different folks.  Creating alliances requires, not bravado, but an understanding of what is needed to motivate followers, to push them forward so that they can think your way.  And like you for it. The leadership literature calls this "charisma;" the ability of a leader, the likes of John Kennedy or Obama, to initiate a degree of positive emotion on the part of the follower toward the leader they'll do anything for him. Motivating others begins with likability. Even negative leaders count on likebility but theirs is based on creating fear, a sense of urgency, a common ennemy, to bring followers to share their vision. Negative leaders like Trump create negative emotions to get rid of a threat. Positive leaders, on the other hand, create positive emotions in their followers to build solidarity and strength and to move the country forward.
    The american people are too smart for Trump. This country had great teachers. Abraham Lincoln understood the dynamics of effective leadership better than any other president. "If you want to know a man's character, give him power." Psychologists have learned through their rigourous studies that a man's real personality shows up under stress. Powerful men compensate for that stress by using their legitimate power. In a totalitarian culture he would be deposed or assassinated. Just as Hitler was elected democratically so was Trump. The american people abhore the use of "coup d'états;" to depose its leaders; a sign of uncivilised ways to tell him he is unfit for leadership. But we pay a great price for our democratic ways, our patience with mediocre leaders. So we bring them down democratically as well. To paraphrase Lincoln, you can't insulte a people's intelligence forever. He will fall off his piedestal soon. Mark my words. Psychological science at work, in the service of predicting human behavior. And US psychologists have no contenders in this area.

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